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A rocket comes howling out of the bank, hitting a patrol car and detonating with a deafening crump-whoosh and a tower of flame.
‘Go, go!’ Michael says, shoving Geoff in the back to get him moving. The cars around them are providing some cover, but it won’t last, and they can’t stay. They have to move while the cops are keeping their heads down after the rocket.
They run for the bank, Michael’s breath ragged in his lungs. The heist has gone spectacularly wrong already, and at this point he’s more worried about all of them making it out alive than Gavin successfully hacking the vault.
Loud cracks ring out over the shouting, the sirens, the pounding of his heart, and Michael knows Ray must be covering them, keeping the cops down as best he can from a distance. It’s not quite enough – they’re twenty or thirty yards from the doors of the bank and there are bullets everywhere, brick dust puffing out of the walls terrifyingly close to them, coating Michael’s jacket in orange powder. It’s only a matter of time before one of them hits him or Geoff.
‘Ryan!’ Geoff shouts, and Michael can hear the panicked crack in his voice.
For a horrible second, there’s no answer, and Michael doesn’t think Ryan can hear them.
Then a second rocket blasts out of the bank, so close that Michael slows slightly, instinctively rearing back from its path. A SWAT van explodes across the street, flipping high into the air and crashing into a building.
At almost the same instant, something takes Michael’s right leg out from under him. He stumbles, trying to catch himself and keep running, but when he tries to put his foot down there’s nothing there.
He falls hard, cutting his hands against asphalt and broken glass, and after a breathless, suspended moment, blinding pain rips up through his hip.
Twisting over, looking back, he finds that his leg is a shattered mess of flesh and bone fragments. His foot is gone, the remains sitting in his shoe a couple of yards away. It takes a second to connect that fact with the sick, hot rush of pain, but when he understands that he’s seeing, a scream rips from his throat.
Once he starts, he can’t stop, raw noises tearing free, scaring him with their animal, mindless intensity.
‘Michael!’ he hears Geoff shout, loud enough to cut through the white-noise in his head, then there are hands under his arms, dragging him bodily across the sidewalk. It’s agony, the bloody scraps of his leg catching and pulling against the rough ground, and knowing that he’s leaving his foot behind hurts in a deep and horrifying way that Michael could never have expected.
He can’t stop screaming, even when Ryan starts a hail of rockets that pass so close Michael feels their heat crush the breath out of him. The explosions are deafening, and he can barely hear Geoff’s shouted commands as he finally gets Michael into the relative safety of the bank.
He’s aware that Ryan is helping Geoff carry him, blessedly grateful that between the two of them they can lift him up and stop trailing his ruined leg against the ground. They’re only inside the cool marble halls of the bank for a minute, it seems, then Gavin joins them and they burst out of a side door and Jack is waiting.
Michael makes a thin noise of despair as they manhandle him, trying to get him into the van with more haste than care, jostling his leg and sending white-hot pain spiraling up into his spine.
Gavin’s hand brushes against the raw, trailing strings of muscle and he retches, jolting back as though the touch hurt him just as much as Michael.
The van doors slam, and Michael hears ‘Get us to Caleb! Go!’ as though it’s coming from a great distance. He can feel himself slipping, his whole body shaking with sudden cold that makes no sense against the hot pain. He’s lying on the metal floor of the van, Ryan and Geoff and Gavin all babbling at him, Ryan digging pads and bandages out of the first-aid kit and packing them around Michael’s leg without any apparent care for how badly it hurts.
Michael can feel blood pooling around him, wicking up his jeans as if he’s gone paddling in the ocean without rolling up his pants. It’s ticklish and unpleasant, and he wants to sit up and stop it getting all over his favourite leather jacket, but his remaining limbs aren’t listening to him anymore.
His fuzzy view of the steel-grey roof is interrupted by Gavin’s terrified face staring down at him.
‘Michael! You’ll be okay, boi, you’ll be okay. Please, Michael! Look at me!’ Gavin is saying, tapping at his face, but Michael can’t answer him. There’s too much white-noise, and his body doesn’t seem to belong to him. He can’t move, he just has to lie there and let the pain wash through him, redoubling with every jolt of the van, every uncontrolled shiver that wracks him.
His eyes slip shut, and everything fades away.
~
Michael wakes up fuzzy and too hot, pushing at the covers before he’s fully aware. The sharp, stabbing pull of a needle in his arm stops him short, and he blinks himself awake to look around.
He’s not in his own room, but the space is familiar. Pastel yellow walls and pale wood-effect furnishings don’t quite hide the fact that it’s a hospital room, albeit a very exclusive, private one. He’s lying propped up in a wide bed, clear bags of drugs and fluids hanging from a steel frame beside him. A heart monitor beeps quietly in counterpoint to the low murmur of conversation from the people sitting around the bed.
Ryan, Geoff, Jack and Gavin are all there. Geoff has a book in his hands, Gavin is poking at a tablet that probably contains more sensitive information than the average police database, and Jack and Ryan are passing a phone back and forth, apparently taking turns to try and beat each other’s scores at Doodle Jump.
Michael isn’t in pain, beyond a dull, distant throbbing in his right knee, but he knows he must have been hurt badly to be here. Caleb and all her staff are on the Fake AH payroll, but they don’t end up as in-patients unless they absolutely must.
Michael’s dimly aware that he’s drugged out of his mind, but at the same time he’s too spaced out to worry much about it. He’s more concerned by the fact that he’s too hot and his tongue feels like a wad of cotton. There’s a cup with a straw sticking out of it sitting on the side table just to his right, so he reaches for it.
His balance feels strange as he rolls to the side, his legs not giving him the push against the mattress that he expects, but he manages to snag the cup. His hand is covered in band-aids, his fingers slow and shaky, and as soon as he lifts the cup, he drops it again, making a clatter against the table and splashing water over the side.
‘Hey, buddy, let me get that,’ Geoff says, setting his book aside and picking up the cup.
He holds it in place, letting Michael sip slowly from the straw until he starts to feel queasy and bats it aside.
‘Better?’ Geoff asks, setting the cup down again.
Michael nods, rolling his head against the pillows. The others are all looking at him, and he grins at them, pleased that they’re there. He knows Ray is missing, but that’s okay – they’re busy people. He’s probably taking care of business.
‘You’re smashed out of your box, boi,’ Gavin tells him with an answering grin.
‘Yeah,’ Michael says, low and scratchy. It doesn’t feel like he’s spoken for a while. He’s still too hot, and he fumbles at the blanket, trying to pull it up off his feet.
Ryan watches for long enough to work out what he’s doing, then gets up and helps him with a strange, pained look on his face. He folds the blanket back, and Michael feels a welcome rush of cool air on his left foot. His right foot doesn’t feel any different, and when he looks down at himself, he can’t find it.
‘My foot?’ he says, brow furrowed. It ought to be there.
Jack sighs. ‘You still don’t remember?’
‘Remember?’ Michael asks.
‘You’ve woken up a couple of times,’ Gavin tells him. ‘But the drugs are screwing with your short term memory. We’ve had this conversation before.’
‘Don’t remember,’ Michael says.
‘Yeah, I know.’
Michael stares at them for a minute, then remembers that he was asking something.
‘Where’s my foot?’ he asks again.
‘You got shot,’ Ryan tells him. ‘You lost it.’
Michael’s fairly sure that’s very bad news.
‘Oh,’ he says.
He’s sure he ought to feel bad, ought to remember what happened, but everything’s still fuzzy. He stares at his friends for a while, but all of them seem to be waiting for him to react before they say anything else. He’s still trying to think of something to say when he drifts off again.
~
The second time that he remembers waking up is much, much worse. He’s less heavily drugged and and confused, remembers talking to Gavin, and remembers Ryan telling him flatly that he lost his foot. With a little more thought, he remembers getting shot, and then immediately wishes that he hadn’t.
The memory of pain sparks real pain as he tenses up, and his right leg feels all wrong. The muscles below his knee don’t respond properly when he flexes, and he can feel a horrible wad of bandages pressing against the sheets where his calf ought to be. He has a sudden, visceral memory of seeing his own foot lying bloodied and ruined on the road, and sits up with a gasp, needing to see what’s left of him right now.
‘Michael?’ Geoff says, looking up from his book. The room is otherwise empty, lights dimmed except for the sidelight Geoff is using to read. The others must have gone home to sleep. ‘Hey, you’re okay. Calm down.’
‘Geoff, my leg, Geoff,’ Michael stutters out, clawing at the blanket with shaking fingers. ‘Need to see.’
‘Okay, it’s okay,’ Geoff says, helping him pull off the covers and get a clear look.
His first sight of himself knocks the breath out of Michael. The blue-spotted hospital gown stops above his knees, and there are a bare few inches of pale skin before his right leg disappears into a thick white lump of bandages. There’s almost nothing left below his knee.
‘Jesus,’ he breathes, when he finally gets enough air into his lungs. ‘Oh Jesus fuck. What the fuck hit me?’
Geoff scowls. ‘It was a .50 caliber sniper round.’
‘The fucking LSPD has snipers now? Thank god their aim still sucks.’
He’s seen Ray work before, knows that the same shot to his chest would have obliterated most of his organs. He might not feel like it, but he knows he’s lucky.
‘No, they don’t have snipers,’ Geoff says, his lips twisting into a snarl. ‘Don’t worry about it, that motherfucker’s history.’
Michael isn’t quite sure what he means. If it wasn’t the cops, was there a sniper from a rival gang after them? Still, Geoff says it’s been taken care of, and he has more pressing concerns.
He looks down at his missing leg and sees his future in ruins. He never expected to survive long enough to get kicked out of the Fake AH, but it’s not like they’re going to keep a cripple around. This isn’t like the other times one of them has got hurt. Michael isn’t going to get better.
The thought of leaving them feels like something heavy is sitting in his lungs, and he curls in on himself, clenching his fists in his lap to keep himself from tearing at the bandages, tearing out his stitches so he can finish bleeding out.
He’s sure Geoff will at least let him stay at Caleb’s for a while, he must have earned that much after years with the Fake AH, but he has no idea what he’ll do afterwards. He’s committed too much crime to ever go to the state for aid, and he’s seen enough homeless veterans squatting under bridges to know what his prospects look like, especially if he doesn’t get to keep the money and fast cars he’s accumulated with the crew.
I couldn’t fucking drive anyway, he realises, with a dull pang of horror. He’s always loved speeding through the hills with music blaring from the speakers as he throws his car into the bends. He won’t ever get to do that again.
‘Why didn’t you let me die?’ he asks dully.
Geoff makes a horrified noise. ‘Are you fucking serious?’
‘Of course I’m fucking serious,’ Michael grinds out. ‘What the fuck was the point? I’m no use to you.’
Geoff shoves himself up out of his seat and paces away, his movements short and jerky. It’s a small room, and he only has space for a few steps before he stops, staring at the wall and raking his hands through his hair as though he’s tempted to pull it out by the roots.
When he turns around, his eyes are wet.
‘If you weren’t hurt already, I’d absolutely be punching you right now,’ he says tightly. ‘After all this time, you think I only care about you being useful? Fuck you, Michael! This crew is my family. I thought it was yours, too.’
Michael feels like shit. ‘Yeah, it is,’ he says. ‘But we’re hardly playing happy fucking families here. We have jobs to do. I know I’m dead weight.’
‘I don’t care if you never work again, asshole. It’s not your fault that fucker shot you. And you’re not out forever anyway – Caleb told us there’s a lot you can do with prosthesis. You’ll walk again, I fucking promise you.’
‘I will?’ Michael says, feeling his chest go tight with sudden longing. Maybe, just maybe, there’s still something to salvage from this mess.
Geoff lets out a shaky breath. ‘Yeah. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but you’re gonna be okay. Really, you are. Isn’t that better than being dead?’
Michael looks at the horrible white space where his leg used to be, and forces a nod. It doesn’t feel better, but he knows he’s probably not in the most logical frame of mind.
‘Jesus, Michael’ Geoff says, dropping back into his seat like there’s a fifty ton weight on his shoulders. ‘Please don’t say things like that. The crew can’t afford to lose you, and I couldn’t handle it.’
Michael nods again. He has no idea how much time has passed since he got shot, but he can’t imagine that it’s been fun for any of the crew. Whenever someone else gets hurt, it’s always awful waiting to find out if they’ll be alright. Given how close Michael had been to death, knowing that he’s only lost a leg must seem like a relief to his friends.
‘When can I come home?’ he asks.
Geoff shrugs. ‘Caleb will be here in the morning; she can tell you more than I can. You should try and get some more sleep.’
Michael settles back against the pillows reluctantly, sure that he’s too worked up to sleep. His leg aches, and his hands throb from dozens of small cuts. He feels hollow, and he can’t work out if it’s hunger or nausea gnawing at his stomach. He lies rigidly still, trying not to move his legs so he doesn’t cause a spike of pain, picking at the band-aids on his hands without ever quite tearing them off. It’s too quiet, and the beep of the heart monitor is too clinical, keeping him from forgetting where he is.
Geoff has his book in his hands, but he spends more time looking at Michael than reading it. After an interminable silence, he clears his throat and starts reading aloud from his place in the book.
‘The sky was brilliantly blue, and the sunlight on the glittering white stretches of prairie was almost blinding. As Antonia said, the whole world was changed by the snow; we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks. The deep arroyo through which Squaw Creck wound was now only a cleft between snowdrifts – very blue when one looked down into it...’
Michael lies and listens to Geoff calmly read about long ago and far away, and eventually the familiar sound of his voice helps him fall asleep.
~
‘When will I be back to normal?’ Michael asks, as soon as Caleb has finished her examination in the morning.
Caleb purses her lips, clearly pondering how to answer. ‘In one sense, never. You’re not going to get your leg back, Michael, I’m sorry,’ she says gently. ‘You need to accept that, and go through the grieving process. But that’s not to say that it’s hopeless. You can get most of the function back with a prosthetic, once you get used to it.’
‘That’s what I meant,’ Michael says, glad that Geoff has gone to shower and change his clothes. He can do without any of his friends hearing the words “grieving process”. Christ, like he isn’t enough of a pathetic cripple already. ‘When will that happen?’
‘You need to heal before you can be fitted. There’s a lot of swelling around the surgical site, and the wound needs to settle. I’d say you need to expect that to take at least a month, or you’ll end up frustrated if there are any delays. Any complications or infection will set your healing back. And to be honest, you might want to find another doctor.’
‘You can’t do fake legs?’ Michael says skeptically.
Caleb smiles. ‘Sure I can. I can fit you with a good prosthetic, get you up and about again, but there are advances I’m not qualified to work with. Your knee joint is intact, and there are good muscle fibres left below it. You might want to look into bionics at some point, and get a foot you can move with your brain. I know you can afford it.’
Michael nods tightly, filing that suggestion away as currently irrelevant. For the moment, he’s more interested in getting out of bed than getting some space-age super leg.
‘When can I go home?’
‘I want to keep you here for a couple more days, just in case. There’s always a risk of clots after an amputation. And you’ll need to be on total bed rest for at least another week. I’m not letting you go unless you’ll promise not to be an idiot.’
Caleb has had considerable experience with the Fake AH and their bad habits. Years of pulled stitches and re-broken ribs have taught her that they’ll be back to their usual antics the moment they’re not tied down.
‘Not like I can get up and run off,’ Michael grumbles.
‘Well, I’ll be sending crutches with you, so you can get yourself to the bathroom, but you’re not to use them unless you must.’
Michael sighs. ‘Whatever.’ He can’t wait to get back to his own space. The little room at the clinic is nice enough, but it’s not his, and there’s nothing to do. He can’t wait to have access to his consoles again.
When Caleb has left him alone, he grabs his phone from the bedside table and calls Ray.
The call goes to voicemail and he scowls. He’s seen everyone except Ray, though he was barely lucid when most of his friends last visited.
You better be busy, asshole, he thinks. If Ray’s just forgotten to charge his phone again, Michael will kick his ass.
He texts Gavin instead, knowing that the Brit never answers calls.
>>Bring my DS when you come over?
A minute later, he gets an obnoxious smiley face in reply. He sighs, and settles in to play Piano Tiles and resolutely refuse to think until someone turns up to keep him company. His reflexes are dulled by drugs, and he can’t get anywhere close to his usual scores, so he’s thoroughly frustrated by the time Gavin arrives.
‘Oh, thank fuck!’ he says, when Gavin holds out his blue 3DS. ‘Tom Nook’s a fucking loan shark, but at least Animal Crossing doesn’t need any reflexes.’
Gavin laughs, flopping down in the chair closest to the bed.
‘I’m stuck here another couple of days, so thanks for bringing this,’ Michael tells him. ‘I called Ray, but he didn’t answer.’
Gavin pauses with his own DS in his hands, looking uneasy.
‘I’m surprised you called him first,’ he says.
Michael smirks. ‘You’re still my boi, Gav, don’t get jealous.’
Gavin shakes his head. ‘No, it’s just, I’m surprised you want to see him.’
‘Why?’ Michael says, frowning at Gavin. He’s making zero sense even by his own standards.
‘He put you in here. He’s the sniper,’ Gavin says, his mouth twisted with misery.
Michael freezes, ice flooding his veins. Ray shot him. Ray took his fucking leg off. Ray could have killed him.
Then it occurs to him that Ray is his friend, and would never shoot him deliberately. Not to mention that Ray is the best. If he wanted to kill Michael, he’d have been dead before he ever knew what had hit him.
‘It was an accident, right?’
‘I hope so,’ Gavin says. ‘Doesn’t really matter though, does it?’
‘Of course it matters!’ Michael insists. ‘He’s my best friend, so where the fuck is he?’
Gavin shrugs, looking downcast. ‘I dunno. I haven’t seen him since you were in surgery.’
‘That asshole could at least have stuck around until I woke up.’
‘Well, no, he couldn’t. Geoff made him leave.’
‘What?’
‘Geoff took his penthouse key and told him to piss off. He’s pretty angry about Ray shooting you.’
Michael’s mouth hangs open for a long moment.
‘Are you fucking serious?’ he says, more of an exclamation than an actual question. Geoff’s a vicious bastard, but he’s never been one to take out his temper on his own people.
Gavin just shrugs helplessly.
Michael grabs his phone and speed-dials Geoff.
‘Hey buddy,’ Geoff says when he picks up. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Gavin says Ray shot me,’ Michael blurts.
Geoff makes an angry growling noise. ‘Yeah. Don’t worry, he’s history. I’m gonna throw his shit off the roof before you get home.’
Michael is struck speechless yet again.
‘Why the fuck would you do that?’ he asks, when he can get his tongue to work. ‘What do you mean he’s history? What the fuck did you do to Ray?’
‘Nothing,’ Geoff says, sounding confused. ‘He’s just gone. Why, do you want me to do something? Ryan is itching to put a bullet in him, just say the word.’
‘No!’ Michael shouts, horrified. ‘Jesus christ, what’s wrong with you two? Do you have evidence that he’s gone rogue or something?’
‘I’d say shooting you is pretty solid evidence.’
‘No it’s not! It was probably an accident, right?’
Geoff hums noncommittally. ‘So he’s either a traitor or incompetent. Good fucking riddance either way.’
Michael looks at Gavin, and finds him looking miserably at his own hands. It’s clear that the hacker doesn’t quite agree with Geoff’s assessment, but he’s not saying anything. It’s not up to him.
‘You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that?’ Michael tells Geoff furiously. ‘Oh, Michael, we’re a family, we care about you, we don’t want you to die, please don’t give up and kill yourself,’ he parrots, in the most whiny, nasal voice he can manage. Gavin flinches at the words, but Michael’s got more pressing concerns than upsetting Gavin right now. ‘Why don’t you care about Ray then, asshole?’
‘It’s different!’ Geoff insists, getting angry in return. ‘That motherfucker put you in the hospital! You think I’m not sad about letting him go? Of course I am. I trusted him, and he fucked us!’
‘Did you even ask him what happened?’
‘I saw what happened! I dragged you off the road in pieces afterwards!’
Michael winces, feeling cold dread trickle through him at the reminder. It’s enough to cool the heat of his anger a little, but not enough to make him stop.
‘Listen, you leave his stuff alone. When he comes back, I want to speak to him. I don’t care if you’re the boss – it’s not your fucking business whether I’m angry with him or not.’
‘He’s not coming back,’ Geoff insists, and Michael has had enough.
‘That’s not up to you, Geoff. Don’t touch his fucking stuff!’
He stabs at his phone, disconnecting the call, and breathes deeply for a minute, waiting for the sour mix of anger and horror to settle in his stomach.
‘He’ll come back, and I’ll talk to him,’ he tells Gavin, when he’s pulled himself together again. ‘I don’t think for a second that Ray meant this to happen.’
Gavin still looks unsure, but he doesn’t say anything further. He turns on his DS, and they start a rather subdued Pokemon battle.
~
Geoff doesn’t visit again before Michael leaves the clinic, but Ryan does, and Michael spends a very satisfying ten minutes telling him exactly why he’s an asshole for being so willing to hunt Ray down and shoot him. Ryan looks chagrined long before he’s finished, and he agrees that he won’t do anything to harm Ray, at least until Michael says so.
‘You’re the injured party, quite literally,’ he says. ‘It should be up to you what the reparation is.’
Gavin and Jack seem much less homicidal, more sad about Michael’s injury than angry. If either of them think that Ray’s guilty, they don’t say so, and Michael appreciates their tacit agreement. It’s much easier to believe that it was an accident than to contemplate Ray betraying him.
When Caleb finally clears him to go home, Michael is more than ready to leave. There’s been far too much tension for the small room to hold, and it’s been feeling more stifling by the day.
Jack brings round the minivan they use when they need to be inconspicuous, reasoning that it has the softest ride and Michael can sit sideways across the back seats. It’s a good plan, but even so Michael is pale and sweaty with pain long before they get home. The small jolts of the car are enough to make him tense and move, and every flex of his severed muscles hurts like a red-hot brand pressed against his stump.
Pride would have him struggle over to the elevator and into his room on his crutches, but Jack is having none of it.
‘You’re the colour of spoiled milk,’ she tells him, holding him down when he shakily tries to get out of the minivan. ‘If you try and walk you’re going to pass out.’
‘I’m not helpless,’ Michael insists with a scowl.
‘Yes you are right now,’ Jack tells him flatly. ‘Shut up and take the help when you need it. You’ll have plenty of time to be a stubborn asshole when you’re capable again.’
Michael grinds his teeth, but his arms won’t stop shaking, and he knows he’ll never make it on his crutches. He would have had a fold-out wheelchair, but he told Caleb to fuck off when she suggested it. Jack might have a point about him being stubborn.
‘Fine,’ Michael bites out, and Jack nods.
She gives him her elevator key and picks him up in a princess carry, and it’d be humiliating if it weren’t so comforting. Jack is big and solid, and her stride is careful. There’s no jolting at all, and after the pain of the journey, it’s a welcome relief to relax in her arms.
Michael puts the key in the elevator so Jack doesn’t have to let him go, and a minute later they’re home.
There are clean sheets on Michael’s bed, and bottles of Gatorade and juice already lined up on his bedside table. The matching set of padded chairs has been moved out of the dining room and set around his bed, so that the others can sit and keep him company without crowding onto the bed. The door to his en-suite is open, and he can see a plastic chair waiting in the shower so he can sit down and wash. Someone has clearly put some thought into what Michael will need, and he’s grateful for it at the same time as he resents the necessity.
Gavin is waiting, playing Halo on Michael’s Xbox One, and when Jack walks in he hurries to pull down the sheets.
Michael settles back against the mountain of pillows with a sigh of relief. It’s warm enough in his room that the t-shirt and shorts he’s wearing are enough, but there’s a new, soft-looking blue comforter folded at the end of his bed in case he gets cold. He’s also sure that they never used to have this many pillows in the entire penthouse, but he’s grateful for them.
‘Thanks. Where’d the pillows and the comforter come from?’ he asks, when his head has stopped swimming.
‘I went on a shopping spree,’ Gavin says with a grin. ‘I wanted to buy you cartoon dinosaur bedsheets, but they only came in singles.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Michael says. He appreciates being teased rather than edged around, but he’s feeling fragile and babyish enough without being surrounded by children’s things.
‘I think Geoff’s cooking tonight, but you can have something earlier if you’re hungry,’ Jack says.
‘I’ll wait,’ Michael says. His appetite has been all over the place, antibiotics and painkillers making him nauseous and ravenous by turns. He’s a little unsure about Geoff cooking for him – there’s been radio silence between them since Michael lost his temper, but he doesn’t think Geoff is vindictive enough to poison him, and his food is too good to pass up.
‘Do you want to play something?’ Gavin asks.
Michael is tempted to say yes, just for the company, but he’s sick and hurting, and focusing on anything is difficult.
‘I think I’ll take a painkiller and sleep for a bit, sorry.’
‘Right. Where are your pills?’
‘I left them in the van. I’ll get them,’ Jack says, and walks out.
‘You can keep playing if you want, it doesn’t bother me,’ Michael tells Gavin.
Gavin eagerly picks up the controller, but he turns the volume down before he starts playing again.
Michael lies back and watches idly as Gavin gets repeatedly murdered by the Flood, smiling at the familiar noises of surprise Gavin makes whenever he gets ambushed.
Jack returns with the bag of medication, and sets out the bottles on his bedside table where he can reach them. Between NSAIDs, two different antibiotics and opiate and non-opiate based painkillers, there’s a small forest of orange pill bottles. Just looking at all of them makes Michael helplessly angry, but he knows he’d be an idiot not to take them.
The bag also contains a stack of sterile dressings, and Jack puts them in the cabinet in the bathroom. Michael knows he’s going to need help to change the bandages, and he’s not looking forward to it. He’s only seen his naked stump once, when the nurse was changing his dressing, and it made him sick to his stomach to look at the swollen, discoloured flesh. The harsh black lines of stitches criss-crossing the stump look like something out of a horror film.
Michael takes a pill and dozes off, drifting until Ryan comes in and asks if he wants teriyaki salmon or something else.
‘Geoff said it’s up to you.’
‘Geoff can’t come and talk to me himself?’ Michael asks, barely awake and annoyed.
Ryan holds out his phone. ‘He’s at the store. You can talk to him if you want.’
‘Salmon’s fine,’ Michael says, and turns his head away, feeling foolish and put out. He knows he’s being petulant, but he’s got a pretty good excuse, and Geoff’s hardly any better. He still hasn’t said a damn word about Ray.
He wakes up again in time for dinner, and to be fair to Geoff, it’s very good. He hasn’t made a mess of it just to spite Michael. Everyone sits in Michael’s room and eats teriyaki noodles off their knees, watching Always Sunny and laughing. Geoff shoots Michael the occasional odd look, but it seems more like he’s waiting for another dressing down than waiting to start something himself. Michael isn’t in the mood for another shouting match, but he’s very much aware that Ray is still gone.
~
The following morning, when he has recovered from the stress of travelling, Michael starts thinking about Ray again. He’s got plenty of company, but he still misses his friend, and knowing that they really need to talk is bothering him. Jack is sitting with him, her feet up on the side of his bed as they play Kalimba together.
‘Have you heard from Ray?’ Michael asks her, while the next level is loading.
‘No. I don’t expect him to contact us,’ Jack tells him sadly.
‘None of you have even spoken to him?’
Jack shakes her head. ‘Geoff’s still furious with him. He’s blacklisted. If he’s got any sense, he’s a thousand miles from Los Santos.’
Michael feels suddenly sick. Blacklisting means no one in Los Santos who owes allegiance to the Fake AH will work with him. No one will help him if he gets into trouble with their many enemies. Ray will have no choice but to leave. It’s worse than Michael realised.
‘Can you get Gav for me?’ he asks.
‘Sure,’ Jack says, pausing the game.
She returns a few minutes later with Gavin. The Brit flops down on the end of Michael’s bed in a sprawl that’s more calculated than it looks. Michael knows him well enough to see when he’s stressed and trying not to look it.
‘What’s up, boi?’
‘I want you to find Ray. You can track his phone even when it’s off, right?’
Gavin nods immediately, perking up. ‘Yeah. What do you want me to do when I find him?’
‘Bring him home,’ Michael says firmly. ‘Fuck Geoff – I’m the one who got shot. If I say Ray’s not to blame, Geoff’s got no right to punish him for it.’
Jack looks uneasy, but she doesn’t say anything. Michael would bet that she wants Ray back as well.
‘It might take a while,’ Gavin warns. ‘Not finding him – that’s bloody easy – but he might be anywhere in the world by now.’
‘I don’t care. Just get him back?’ Michael says. It comes out more desperate than he’d like, but he’s worried, and the more lucid he gets, the more it bothers him that no one’s even heard from Ray. Learning that Geoff actually went so far as to blacklist him makes Michael doubly nervous. It’s one step short of putting out an active hit on him.
‘Got it,’ Gavin says, and bounces out of the room with far more energy than before.
Michael jumps his little red character into blue light and kills them ten times on the next level, entirely distracted from what he’s supposed to be doing. Fortunately, Jack is equally half-hearted and she doesn’t seem to mind.
Gavin returns less than twenty minutes later.
‘Found him,’ he says, but his mouth is pinched in concern. ‘He’s still in the city, I’ve asked Ryan to pick him up.’
That sounds like good news, and it bothers Michael that Gavin still looks worried. Perhaps, like Michael, he’s afraid that one of the crew’s enemies has found him.
‘I’m not sure I’d have sent Ryan. He was almost as pissed as Geoff.’
Gavin frowns. ‘It was just easier, he’s already out and about. Shall I go instead?’
‘It shouldn’t matter. I’ve already yelled at him once,’ Michael says with a shrug. In the scheme of things, Ryan is the least of Ray’s potential dangers.
‘When will Geoff be back?’ he asks. He knows their boss has gone north to meet a supplier, a chemist named Matt who’s worked with them for so long that he’s all but one of the crew.
‘Tomorrow.’
Michael nods. ‘I’ll talk to him about the blacklist then. I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking.’
‘I don’t think he was thinking,’ Jack says.
Michael scowls. It’s a lot harder to take back an announcement like that than it is to make it. If Ray gets hurt later because Geoff threw a fucking tantrum, Michael is going to break his kneecaps.
~
Jack and Gavin leave Michael to take yet another nap, and he’s just waking up again when the door bursts open and Ray stumbles in, Ryan shoving him from behind hard enough that Michael knows he’s still having anger issues about Michael getting shot.
Ray doesn’t even see Michael in the bed, dark eyes downcast and heavy with sadness. His balance is off, and he falls to his knees on the carpet just inside the door, arms wrapped around his too-thin ribs as if he’s trying to hold himself together.
He looks terrible. His short hair is lank and greasy, his clothes are smudged with grime and dust, but worst of all is his defeated posture. He kneels on the plush carpet like a condemned man just waiting for the bullet to the back of his skull, too weary to fight. For all his fears, Michael never expected Ray to look so broken.
'What the fuck, Ryan?' Michael demands, horrified. 'What did you do to him?'
Ray’s head jerks up at the sound of his voice, and Michael’s heart clenches at the sheer disbelief on his face. Ray didn’t know he was alive. God knows what he thought Ryan was doing, if the masked idiot hadn’t even explained that much.
God dammit, what did you do? Michael thinks, mentally cursing Geoff and Ryan as he tries to smile at Ray. He doesn’t get much of a chance before Ray is looking down again, avoiding his eyes.
‘I didn’t do anything. I found him like this,’ Ryan insists through his grim mask – and boy, they’re going to have words later about his decision to wear it when he went to find Ray.
Ray makes a nasty, dry coughing noise.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, in a voice that scratches and breaks.
Michael scowls, pain turning to anger as it so often does for him. How the fuck is he the less broken one here? He just wanted his friend back, and Ray looks like shit.
‘Get the fuck off my floor,’ he says harshly, unable to deal with Ray cowering before him any longer.
Ray flinches, and Michael immediately feels like an asshole. Ray’s not to blame, he knows that, and by the looks of things he’s had more than enough punishment for the accident already.
Ray peels himself up off the floor in slow movements, and when he’s standing up Michael can see him shaking. He looks towards the door, eyeing Ryan warily, then chances a glance back at Michael, as though he’s stealing a last look before he gets thrown out.
Michael just points at one of the chairs where the others have been sitting since he got home, giving a clear order with the motion. Like hell Ray is leaving before they’ve talked about what happened.
Ray jerks his head, an almost involuntary nod, and shuffles closer, carefully seating himself on the edge of the padded chair.
With less distance between them, Michael can catch the faint, rank smell of stale sweat and cordite wafting off his friend. It’s obvious that Ray hasn’t washed or changed his clothes since the heist went bad.
Ray can’t stop staring at the flat space under the comforter where Michael’s leg ought to be. Michael grimaces, feeling a fresh stab of loss at the reminder, but for the moment he’s more concerned with getting his friend back.
‘Where’ve you been, man?’ he asks, keeping his voice as even as he can manage. It’s not an accusation. He already knows that it wasn’t Ray’s choice to leave.
Ray doesn’t answer for a long moment, still sitting hunched and motionless, staring at the bed.
‘He was in an empty office in Chamberlain Hills,’ Ryan chimes in when the silence has stretched too long. ‘Looked like he'd been sleeping rough in there. Gav tracked his phone, said it hadn't moved in a few days.’
A few days, Jesus, Michael thinks. Between the surgery and the drugs, his sense of time is screwy, but he’s sure it’s been at least five or six days since the heist. He wonders suddenly if Ray has even eaten in all that time. He doesn’t have much fat to spare.
'Why, Ray?' he asks, coaxing for a reason. There must have been something, unless Ray just wanted to punish himself. Looking at the state he’s in, that doesn’t seem entirely unlikely.
'My wallet's here,' Ray mumbles, and that’s explanation enough, really. The Fake AH have resources; caches and safehouses they can use if the penthouse is compromised, but Ray wouldn’t have had access to any of the crew’s backups with Geoff’s banishment hanging over him.
The thought of their not-so-wise leader has Michael’s blood heating up all over again.
'I'm gonna kick Geoff's ass,' he promises, staring earnestly at Ray, who still won’t meet his gaze. 'He chucked you out without even your fucking bank card and ID?'
'I doubt it was calculated,' Ray says with a tiny shrug, like it was no big deal to lose everything he owned at once. 'I had fifty bucks and a rifle. I could have found something.'
'Yeah, but you didn't. You look like shit,' Michael tells him angrily. Ray’s definitely been punishing himself, and he hates it.
Ray shrugs again. 'I fucking shot you,' he says, and his voice breaks on the words.
'Yeah you did,’ Michael agrees. There’s no point in pretending it didn’t happen, but who put the bullet in him really doesn’t matter, especially when he’s pretty damn sure it was an accident.
‘I don't think you meant it, though. Did you?' He has to ask, just to make Ray say it out loud.
‘No,’ Ray says at once. ‘The building shook when the SWAT van hit it. I missed.’
'Figured,' Michael says, sighing. He knew in his bones that Ray hadn’t meant to shoot him, but it’s still a strange relief to hear it. 'One in a million bad fucking luck.'
Ray doesn’t respond, just sits silently, hunched up and avoiding him. Michael can’t stand it. Ray’s quiet, but he’s not usually defeated like this.
'Hey, asshole, are you gonna look at me?' he demands.
It takes visible effort for Ray to meet his eyes, and there’s terrible pain mingled with the hungry, grateful way he looks Michael over. Yeah, it sucks that Michael got so badly hurt, but he’s had friends around him constantly since he got out of surgery. He doesn’t want to think about how alone Ray has been, shunned and cast out by the closest people he has to family.
'You look worse than I do,' Michael tells him, brow furrowing in concern. He genuinely thinks that if he told Ray to shoot himself, even kill himself to make up for the accident, he would, no questions asked. The Fake AH are survivors, but right now he can’t see any trace of that fire in Ray. He and Michael are both broken.
'I'm okay,’ Ray says quietly, going for reassurance and falling flat. ‘I'm really sorry.'
'Quit apologising!’ Michael bursts out. He almost wants to hit Ray, to force some spirit out of him, but he’s too afraid that Ray would just take it. ‘God, you've been punishing yourself all week, haven't you? And Geoff and Ryan’s fucking idiocy didn’t exactly help.’
Look at him, you assholes. You fucking broke him! he adds privately. Both Gents are going to get the bollocking of a lifetime when Ray’s a little more stable.
'I think he expected me to kill him,' Ryan says thoughtfully, and Michael’s rage only burns hotter at the idea. 'Didn't fight me, either.'
The memory of Ray kneeling passively on the carpet tells Michael that he wouldn’t have fought back. Ryan could have done anything at all, and Ray would have believed he deserved it. He feels sick at the thought.
'Well you're wearing the fucking mask, what else was he gonna think?' Michael almost shouts. 'If Geoff fucking blacklisted me, then you turned up looking like that I'd think you were gonna kill me too.'
Ryan has the sense to look a little ashamed of himself at that. Perhaps he didn’t think, too used to wearing the mask on crew business, but it’s equally possible that he did it deliberately, as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at Ray for scaring him.
'You'd fight, though,' he says quietly, as though he’s just realising how wrong it was that Ray didn’t. No member of the Fake AH in their right mind should be that passive.
'Hell yeah I would!’ Michael declares, glad that he’s starting to get the point. ‘I'll fight you right now. I'll fight anyone. I'll fight myself!' It’s almost a joke, but he sobers slightly when it occurs to him that that’s exactly what he’s going to have to do. He’s been warned that recovery isn’t going to be easy.
'Kinda gonna have to if I want to walk again any time soon,' he says, half talking to himself, and Ray visibly winces.
Michael punches him in the arm, and hates how frail he feels.
'You stop that shit right now,’ he demands. ‘No guilt, no apologies, and definitely no attempted suicide by Ryan, asshole!'
'I'm sorry,' Ray says reflexively. He realizes what he’s done and quirks a smile, but it’s a wry, humourless thing that puts an ugly twist in his lip. Michael doesn’t like it.
'Jesus Christ, what did I just say?' Michael says, trying to counter Ray’s expression with a proper grin despite how forced it feels. 'Get your ass in the shower and change your clothes, okay? You smell like a hobo.'
'My stuff's still here?' Ray asks disbelievingly.
'Yeah it is,’ Michael says, and thanks Christ that it’s true. He’s so glad he lost his temper when Geoff mentioned throwing it all off the roof. ‘Geoff didn't get that far before I got lucid enough to shout at him.'
'He was so scared for you,' Ray says, as though that somehow excuses the wrong Geoff has done him.
'So were you,’ Michael says. He knows by the terrible state Ray is in that it’s true. ‘So was everyone. Doesn't mean he gets to throw you on the street. It was a fucking accident!'
Ray straightens very slightly at that, as though it’s a relief to hear it, but when he stands up he’s still so careful, keeping his arm wrapped around his ribs. Alarm bells go off in Michael’s head at the sight of him.
'You're moving weird,’ he says at once. ‘What happened? Ryan, you said you didn't do anything!'
If it turns out that any of the crew used his injury as an excuse to kick the crap out of Ray, Michael is never, ever going to forgive them.
'I didn't!' Ryan insists.
'No, it was me,' Ray says quickly. Michael is barely reassured. 'I wrecked my bike when I left Caleb's. Couldn't keep it together.'
There’s a world of grief under that statement, but Michael’s not going to push for it right now. He’s just doubly glad that Ray’s here at all. He could so easily have died believing that everything was his fault.
'Jack found it,' Ryan tells Ray, sounding genuinely guilty. 'It's in pieces in the garage. She was worried, but Geoff wouldn't let her look for you. Said if you weren't at the scene you must be fine.'
Michael is stunned into furious silence for a moment. None of them mentioned anything to him about a wrecked bike. There’s no way in hell he’d have let Ray disappear for this long if he’d known his friend was probably injured. Out of all the crew, he’s always been the least afraid of arguing against Geoff, and in this case, Geoff was utterly in the wrong.
'Oh my god,' Michael says eventually, choking out the words as his face burns with rage. 'What the fuck is wrong with him? What the fuck is wrong with you, Ryan? You didn't look for him either! If Gav hadn't tracked his phone for me we never would've found him.'
Ryan looks at the floor, shuffling his feet uneasily. 'I know. It was easier to be angry.'
Ray just nods as though that’s perfectly reasonable, and Christ, Michael hates all of them. This crew is full of idiots.
'It's just bruised ribs, I think,' Ray says, as though that makes anything better. 'I'm okay.'
Michael reaches out, tipping himself off balance in the bed to yank at Ray's clothes, pushing up his grimy hoodie and t-shirt. There’s a terrible swathe of swollen purple and yellow bruising covering the entirety of Ray’s left side, brown skin discoloured and pocked with clotted grazes.
'Jesus. Fucking. Christ,' Michael says slowly, feeling like he might be sick. He’s seen far gorier things, but the fact that Ray thought this was okay, that he didn’t even bother to mention it, makes everything a thousand times worse.
'Here's the plan, okay?’ he says, after a few measured breaths. ‘You're going to wash up and get some take-out or something, because you fucking stink and I don't think you've been eating. Then you're going to get an x-ray, because that looks fucking terrible. Then you can watch me scream at Geoff for being a massive asshole and listen to his heartfelt apology to you. And then you're going to keep me company until I can start getting a prosthetic leg sorted out, so I don't go crazy or have to murder Gavin. Okay?'
Ray smiles, and it’s small, but it’s a proper smile this time. Michael desperately wants to see more of them.
'Yeah, I can do that,' Ray agrees.
He shuffles off to take a shower, and Michael notices that he edges out past Ryan as though he’s a threat.
‘Take the fucking mask off,’ Michael growls, as soon as the door has closed behind him.
Ryan looks at his feet for a moment, then slumps and pulls off his mask, raking a hand through his mussed hair before he looks up at Michael, his face crumpled with guilt.
‘Did you see that?’ Michael demands, jabbing a finger at the closed door. ‘Did you see what you’ve done? Are you fucking happy?’
His voice is a hiss. He’s so angry that he can’t even manage to yell.
‘You went after him with the mask on. You didn’t even tell him I was alive! He was so fucking shocked to see me, he must have thought you were bringing him here to torture him or something, instead of bringing him home. How fucked in the head is he to think that, and not even fight you?’
‘We screwed up,’ Ryan admits.
‘No fucking shit!’ Michael bursts out, and oh, here comes the shouting. ‘You fucking broke Ray! Was me getting shot not bad enough? You had to cripple two of the crew at once? Jesus christ! I wanted my friend back because I wanted his support, and now I find out he’s more fucked up than I am!’
Ryan opens his mouth and Michael cuts him off.
‘I get being angry, I get wanting to blame someone for shit going wrong, but it’s Ray! You really think for a second he meant to shoot me? You let Geoff throw him out, let him crawl away from a fucking bike wreck without even knowing if he was dying! What the fuck is wrong with you? You sick son of a bitch!’
Ryan stands and takes it, looking at the floor.
‘I don’t fucking care if he forgives you, cause I fucking don’t! He’s too fucking miserable to even see what shitty friends you are. Of course he blamed himself – he didn’t need you assholes confirming it! No wonder he’s been sleeping rough rather than trying to get money, it’s a fucking miracle he didn’t throw himself off a bridge. Was there even any food with him? He looks like he hasn’t eaten in days.’
Ryan shakes his head, his brows furrowed. ‘I didn’t see food, or wrappers. There was a bottle of dirty water. I saw a restroom on my way in, he must’ve filled it up from there. He probably chose that office building because it still had some water.’
‘Fucking perfect,’ Michael says, scrubbing a band-aid covered hand over his face in despair. ‘So he’s probably gonna get sick from drinking whatever the hell was in those old-ass pipes as well.’
Ryan doesn’t say anything, just stands there waiting for Michael to start shouting again.
Michael doesn’t have the energy. He’s tired and in fuzzy, distant pain despite the drugs. He wants Ray back, and not this broken shadow of him, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen for a while. He’s going to rip Geoff a new one, and probably Jack and Gavin for not standing up to him, and Ryan all over again for being a creepy fuck at the worst possible time, but he can’t summon the will at the moment.
‘Just...’ he says, waving a hand at Ryan. ‘Just get the fuck out of here and order some decent food, okay? I want Ray to eat before Jack takes him for an x-ray.’
Michael slumps back against his stacked pillows, feeling utterly exhausted. He barely hears Ryan leave, too busy just breathing. Grief and anger make his eyes prickle, hot and itchy behind their heavy lids. He wants to punch something, wants to get out of bed and pace out the rage under his skin, but he knows he can’t.
It hasn’t been easy losing so much freedom and mobility, and now more than ever he wants the ability to move without support. He wants to go with Ray to the clinic and make sure he’s okay, but it’s not worth the process of getting down to the car, or the pain of the journey. He’s trapped, and half of the people he would usually trust to take care of Ray are the ones who broke him in the first place.
He drifts for a while, clenching and unclenching his fist on the comforter until the urge to punch and scream dies away just a little.
There’s a quiet knock, and he opens his eyes as Ray slips back in. He still looks wrecked, but at least he’s clean, and so are the sweatpants and hoodie he’s wearing. They’re his clothes, but somehow he looks too small in them anyway.
He perches on the edge of the same chair as before, and Michael hates that he won’t even sit back and relax. He looks far too ready to be thrown out again.
‘Chinese food in half an hour,’ he says, after a silent moment of Michael just looking at him.
Michael nods.
It’s horribly, painfully awkward, and Michael hates it. He never feels this way around Ray. Gavin is a great guy, but Ray is the definition of easy company. Silence is common between them, but it’s never been this heavily loaded before.
As always, when the crew can’t talk, they play.
‘Halo or CoD?’ Michael asks, offering Ray a controller.
Ray stares at it for a solid twenty seconds before he takes it, and that hurts like hell. Playing games is what Ray does, constantly and expertly. It’s not like him to hesitate.
‘Your call,’ he says.
Michael wants to force him to choose, but Ray looks uncertain enough, and he’s not a total asshole. He loads Halo without asking again.
When the food arrives, they all pile into Michael’s room again and spread the containers out on the bed. Michael shoves seven different favourite dishes towards Ray and leaves him to decide which ones he actually wants.
Ray picks at all of them, but Michael’s sure he hasn’t eaten a decent meal by the time he’s done. He knows force-feeding him isn’t the answer, but god, he wishes Ray looked better. He’s gone beyond quiet and into submissive, and it doesn’t suit him at all.
‘I’m probably gonna fall asleep soon,’ Michael warns him, after Gavin’s put the pile of leftover food in the kitchen. ‘I don’t mind if you stay in here and play or go somewhere else. I’m drugged up enough that I’ll sleep no matter what.’
Ray nods, but doesn’t say anything.
‘I called Caleb,’ Jack puts in. ‘We can go for an x-ray any time.’
Michael mentally curses himself. He hates opiates, they make him way too scatter-brained.
‘Right, that. Do that first,’ he says, pissed at himself for forgetting that Ray’s hurt.
‘Are you ready to go now?’ Jack asks.
‘Yeah,’ Ray says quietly, getting up.
‘Hey, Ray? I’m really glad you’re home,’ Michael says before they leave, because as messed up as he is, he’s happy that Ray is back. He just wants him to feel better.
Ray gives him a tiny smile, and it feels like a victory.
~
Over the next three weeks, it’s hard to say whose progress is slower.
Michael slowly, slowly gets used to living without his leg, napping less and moving around the penthouse more as he cuts down his doses of painkillers. Four of Ray’s ribs turned out to be cracked, and he’s still careful of them, but the damage to his mental state is what really bothers Michael. He hasn’t seen Ray and Geoff willingly say a single word to each other, and despite the time they both spend in Michael’s room, they both seem to be pretending that the other isn’t there.
Geoff’s dressing down, the day after Ray came home, will live in infamy until the Fake AH Crew itself is forgotten. Michael screams for a solid thirty minutes before Geoff even manages to interrupt, and the resulting fight lasts another two hours, dragging Ryan, Jack and Gavin in for varying levels of verbal abuse at different points.
Ray sits beside Michael’s bed through all of it, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, and whenever Michael looks at him he’s staring at the wall. He doesn’t say anything in his own defence beyond ‘I missed,’ and when Geoff dares to use that to claim that he’s incompetent and shouldn’t be part of the crew, Michael’s incandescent rage leads to two shattered glasses and a controller embedded in the drywall.
By the time Michael’s finished, out of breath and in desperate pain from clenching his muscles, every member of the crew has personally apologised to Ray. Geoff publicly recants the blacklisting, sending word to every contact they have that it was a mistake. The fact that Ray had been holed up in the abandoned office and hadn’t even known for sure that he was blacklisted doesn’t make it any less appalling, in Michael’s eyes.
When Geoff finally apologises to him, Ray just nods and says ‘It’s okay, I get it.’
Michael kind of wants to scream at him as well, but he doesn’t. It wouldn’t help. Ray just needs time to get his feet under him again, and if he’s not ready to call Geoff out for being an unforgivable, hypocritical dick, it’s not Michael’s job to make him. Michael will just have to do enough shouting for both of them.
He’s in indescribable agony for most of the next day as his body punishes him for over-exerting himself, but he considers it entirely worth it.
Ray spends a lot of time with Michael, and the awkward weight between them gradually lessens. They play a ridiculous amount of video games, and Ray doesn’t seem to have a problem with shooters, but when Michael suggests he go to the real range, he just shakes his head.
‘I can’t,’ he says, and Michael can see his hands starting to tremble.
He doesn’t push it, but he’s more than a little worried that their sniper can’t shoot anymore. Geoff has admitted that he acted unfairly out of fear, but he doesn’t need another reason to be an asshole. For all Geoff’s claims that they mean more to him than their usefulness to the crew, he’s the boss for a reason, and Michael doesn’t quite trust his promises anymore.
‘Give him time,’ Jack says, when Michael confides in her. ‘We’re not going to be doing any big stuff until you’re up and about anyway. You both have time to get better.’
Michael very unsubtly starts leaving pages on PTSD open on his tablet when Ray can see it, and he considers it a victory when Ray sits and thoughtfully reads one. It makes him smile all over again when Ray sees another page a few days later and rolls his eyes, telling Michael to ‘get that shit out of here.’ It’s not that he wants Ray to suppress his issues, but backtalk is so integrally Ray that he’s glad to hear it.
One morning, Michael is itchy and bored, desperate to move, and it occurs to him that swimming would be a lot less difficult with one leg than most things. His leg has healed enough that he doesn’t have to worry about getting the wound wet.
‘Fancy a swim?’ he says to Gavin and Ray.
Gavin enthusiastically agrees, chattering about swimmy bevs despite the fact that Michael can’t mix booze with his painkillers. Ray shrugs non-committally, but that’s normal Ray rather than depressed submission, and when Michael gets his crutches and starts heading for the rooftop pool, he gets up and follows.
Michael stops and curses when he gets to the stairs to the roof and realises that he’s going to struggle to get up them. He’s good with his crutches, thumping around with no trouble, but there are no other stairs in the penthouse, so he’s had no practice at all.
‘If you try and use crutches on the stairs you’ll break something,’ Ray tells him, while Michael glares at the staircase like his own personal Everest.
‘You gonna carry me, Ray?’ Michael asks, holding his arms out like a toddler demanding to be picked up.
‘Hell no, you’d snap me like a twig,’ Ray says, and Michael grins. Every touch of snark or resistance feels like a step closer to Ray being himself again, and Michael treasures them all.
‘Jack! Can you come and help Princess Michael get to the pool?’ Ray shouts.
‘Fuck off, Jack!’ Michael counters immediately, at double the volume. ‘I’ll slide up on my ass, it’s fine.’
Gavin shrugs and takes his crutches when Michael sits on the steps and holds them out. He goes up first, so Michael can take them back at the top.
Michael slowly slides backwards up the steps, glad that it’s only a short flight. He knows he must look ridiculous, but he can do this, and it’s better to move under his own power than to be carried.
At the top of the stairs, Gavin helps him up and holds him steady while he settles his crutches. Michael feels a stab of triumph at having made it mostly by himself, and shakes his head ruefully. He’s happy about such small, stupid things. Still, it’s worth it. This high up, the smog of Los Santos is cut by a fresh breeze, and the pool is a shimmering, welcoming blue lagoon.
‘God, I should have come up here sooner,’ he tells the lads.
He thumps his way over the smooth paving stones until he’s right on the edge of the pool, then drops his crutches and jumps into the deep end, clothes and all.
Gavin shouts in alarm, then the noise cuts off in a roar of water. Michael lets himself sink, feeling the cool, quiet water cradle him for a moment, then pulls with his arms and kicks his leg, swimming upwards.
He’s laughing when he breaks the surface, grinning at Gavin’s shocked face and feeling better than he has in weeks. The water feels colder against his scarred stump, and it’s disconcerting to have an uneven kick, but for the first time since he lost his leg he feels light. The water buoys him up, and he can float without having to worry about falling over.
‘Get in here,’ he says, splashing at Gavin.
Gavin squawks and tries to protect his phone, then sets it aside and jumps in, soaking Ray with the wave.
‘You asshole!’ Ray yells, yanking his DS out of his pocket and frantically patting it dry. He grabs a float and throws it at Gavin’s head, hitting him with his usual perfect precision.
Gavin yelps and goes under, and Michael tips onto his back and laughs until his chest aches.
Things are a thousand miles from okay, but for the moment, he has his boys and a beautiful private pool to hold him up. Everything else can wait.